


Rhysand's Guide to Rejection

by BastardSonOfDay (Diana_Raven)



Series: Bingo Prompts [11]
Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Gen, and unrequited love, emotional angst, talking about elain
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-28 23:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15060323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diana_Raven/pseuds/BastardSonOfDay
Summary: Missing scene from ACoWaR where Rhysand explains Lucien how he survived his mate's rejection.





	Rhysand's Guide to Rejection

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Rejection ('cuz yall couldn't figure that out, huh?)

The last person Rhysand had expected on the other side of his door at this hour was Lucien Vanserra.

“Lucien, I am so fucking tired. What the fuck do you want?” Rhysand groaned.

“Teach me how to live without her.” Lucien begged. “Teach me how to live.”

Rhysand stared at the other male for quite a long moment. Rhysand couldn’t recall a time Lucien looked worse than he did now. Even after Lucien had lost his eye, he still made himself look regal, made himself look powerful. After Jesminda died it took him ten days to come back and become the Emissary of the Spring Court. (At least to the outside world, to the inside, well—to say that Lucien still cried at night would be an understatement.) It had been months since Hybern—since Elain had rejected Lucien, and here he stood, _disheveled_.

Rhysand couldn’t blame Lucien. He’d looked just as bad when he’d found out Feyre was in Prythian. That night, after he’d first seen her… all alone… wandering around without a care or protector in the world… on the worst of nights to do such a thing...

Lucien’s eye didn’t gleam. The living metal seemed cold and worn—like brass without it’s shine. His hair was a rat’s nest. A messy bun, something that hadn’t been cared about, just done for convenience. Lucien had never before done something purely for convenience… at least not to Rhysand’s knowledge. The red lost it’s splendor, the highlights no longer showed. The fire in his face extinguished. The clothes he wore ragged and frayed. The colors dull and the exact opposite of glamorous. His usually tan skin was pale, and shadows hung under his sunken eyes. His cheekbones stark and sharp in the bad way. Rhysand could see Lucien’s veins shine through his skin. His cuticles were scabbed over, his nails bitten to the quick.

He looked horrible. Absolutely horrible.

“You don’t.” Rhysand said, and shut the door.

* * *

Rhysand felt bad. He shouldn’t have snapped at Lucien like he had. Rhys had been tired and overcome with anger at Lucien’s past alliances and actions, when he probably should have thought about Lucien for a change. After all, Rhys _had_ promised him he would help. Lucien couldn’t survive without his help, too. Lucien had nowhere to go, no one would trust a man who had defected from Courts twice. Especially when he’d been accused multiple times of seducing one of the said Courts’ High Lord’s consorts. He had to stay with them. And Rhysand had to apologize. It wouldn’t have been right otherwise.

Rhysand knocked on Lucien’s door twice.

No answer.

Rhysand knocked again, four times.

No answer.

Rhysand decided this would be the last time he would knock before he gave up and went back to his and Feyre’s shared room. He had only knocked once when the door opened.

Well, at least Lucien had gotten his hair sorted out. That was a start.

“What do you want?” Exhaustion. Lucien was tired in an emotional and mental way, and it showed in his speech. No mind-reading powers needed.

“I want to apologize.”

Lucien was clearly intrigued but the fog must have been so thick he could only feign his interest. “Oh?”

“Yeah. I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have said that to you. You came to me asking me a real question that clearly means a lot to you. And knowing your nature, Lucien, I’m sure it was damn hard to ask for help about something so important-”

“You’re giving yourself too much credit-” Lucien snarled.

“I’m not and you know it. This means a lot to you. One day, Fox Boy, you’ll learn trusting people with stuff going on in your head is the sign of a healthy relationship.”

That blew the rest of the fog off of Lucien’s numb brain—now he was straight up angry.

“Can I come in? Or do you want to have this conversation out here, where _anyone_ could walk by?” Rhysand knew the point he was veiling in his words wouldn’t get across, but he tried anyway.

Lucien growled and turned, letting the door swing open on its own. “Make yourself comfortable, I guess. It’s _your_ house.”

Rhysand sighed, Lucien was always so angry, so closed off. Not that Rhysand could blame him, if Rhys had been through what Lucien had been through… Rhysand wouldn’t be surprised if he acted the same way. Rhysand was surprised he didn’t act like that _now._

Rhys sat on the bed, cross-legged. Lucien paced back and forth, like a caged dog.

“Distance.” The word was pulled from Rhys’s throat. “The distance. It killed me, but it was also what kept me sane. Until… well, until Feyre began to spiral, and Tamlin began to hurt her. Then I had to go get her, but until then… the distance saved me.”

“As I remember it you didn’t stay that far.”

Rhysand let himself smile wryly. “Yeah, well. I… wasn’t good at it, but those nights… Under The Mountain… when I would close my eyes,” Rhysand did it now, and untensed. He spread his arms, imagining for a moment, that he was back there, under Amarantha’s rule… “I would fall back against the sheets,” Rhysand landed with a _FLAP_ on the silk sheets of Lucien’s bed, “and I would smell roses. And wind. And the tang of paint. I could taste the end of the brush which she would stick in her mouth while thinking… I would see glimpses of you and the long manes of the horses…” Rhysand laughed, “I would smell the horses too.” Rhysand took a deep breath of memory, and sighed into the bed.

“And...?” Lucien prompted when Rhysand had been silent for too long.

Rhysand exhaled and sat back up. He ran a hand through his hair, and then let them fall to his lap. “And it helped, being able to see and feel what she did even if I couldn’t-since I couldn’t.”

“Elain doesn’t want me here.” Lucien said softly. He sounded like his heart was breaking.

Rhysand remembered the feeling well: when he looked into Feyre’s eyes and she looked like she would spit in his face.

“I know. I’m sorry.”

“Didn’t-Didn’t it ever feel like… spying? Like violation?”

“Yeah, it did. But, I’m a damaeti, Lucien, it’s like that for me every day.”

Lucien scowled. “Does this mean you peek in people’s heads like you did Feyre?”

Rhysand backpedaled quickly. “No. I-Sometimes. Only ever with permission when it’s like, a thought or a memory. If it’s like... a feeling, then sometimes… It depends on the person and the situation.”

Lucien met his eyes for a second, before looking away. “Me?”

“No.” Rhysand admitted. “Never you.”

Somehow, that didn’t make Lucien feel any better.

“When you’re not near her, the temptation can sometimes be too much, like it was for me, as opposed to lessening it. So it helped, the fact that I didn’t have the power to see her. That I had a-a mission. I mean, even sometimes the temptation… it was too much. But you’re stronger than me in that respect, I believe, Lucien. I’m sure you can manage what I can’t.”

Lucien snorted. “Only if I’m half-way across the world, otherwise… I can’t imagine that.”

Rhysand rubbed his eyes. “Yeah. I know that feeling.”

Lucien was silent for a moment, and then: “Distance, huh?”

“Yeah. Distance. Also, acceptance. Boy, when you figure out how to accept the fact that she doesn’t love you or want you, then everything becomes so much simpler.”

“Does it?” Lucien asked skeptically.

“Well, so I’ve heard. I wouldn’t know. As I’m sure you remember, I never accepted it.”

“And look how well that worked out for you.” Lucien said in a way that Rhys couldn’t tell if it was ironic or wistful.

“I’m sorry for you Lucien. Your situation sucks.”

“Yeah.” Lucien kicked the floor angrily, his jaw tensed. “How am I supposed to get distance, Rhys? I have nowhere to go! No one wants me! Including my mate!”

Rhysand was stunned, unsure of how to respond but sure he needed to. He opened his mouth and Lucien snarled at him: “Don’t Rhys. It was a rhetorical lament. That wasn’t for your advice, but feel free to give me your pity.”

Rhysand felt helpless. “I’m sorry, Lucien.” He repeated.

“Thanks, Rhys. For everything.”

“Yeah… sure. Good night, Lucien.”

“Good night.”

* * *

“Okay, when I said ‘distance’ and you said ‘half-way around the world’, I thought we were at least _semi_ -joking.” Rhysand said as he walked, uninvited, into Lucien’s room.

Lucien scowled at him but kept packing. “Someone needs to go.”

“Elain needs you!”

“No, she doesn’t. She and everyone else have made that _very_ clear.”

“Lucien, running away doesn’t solve anything-!”

“I’m not _running away_ , I’m _creating distance_. You know, _what you suggested-_ ”

“It sounds a _lot_ like running away to me.”

“Well then screw you.”

“Lucien-”

“Don’t ‘ _Lucien_ ’ me.”

“Please, just- It’s stupid and-”

“I’m going, whether or not Elain is a factor. It should be _me_. I’m going, Rhys.” Lucien insisted.

Rhysand slumped defeatedly against the wall. “There’s nothing I can say or do, huh?”

“Nope.” Lucien popped the ‘p’.

“Then, I guess, good luck.”

“Thanks, Rhys.” Lucien paused both physically and verbally. “Good luck to you too.”

“Thanks. I’ll see you again Lucien.”

“Yeah. You will.”

Rhysand pushed himself off the wall and was about to walk out when he hesitated. “Lucien, be like me. Well, the good parts of me—don’t stay too far.”

Lucien didn’t respond, and when Rhys and Feyre awoke the next morning he was already gone.


End file.
